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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28195392">#53 cherry blossom</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/berndes/pseuds/berndes'>berndes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stray Kids (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, Light Angst, Love at First Sight, M/M, Strangers to Lovers, author waxes some kind of poetry, not really but kinda, there's a bit of angst in there but maybe that's just me</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:54:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,383</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28195392</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/berndes/pseuds/berndes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>jisung goes to tokyo to watch the cherry blossoms, and finds more than the serenity he came looking for. </p><p>a story about a fleeting love at first sight, of an instant connection to another being, of things feeling right even when they probably shouldn’t, and of time running out.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>#53 cherry blossom</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>found this gathering dust in my archives and figured it was worthy of picking up again. it was originally for another pairing, but re-written for minsung bc heck, i love those two.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>°☾~ ◝</p>
</div><p>jisung saw him for the first time just as the flowers on the cherry trees started to bloom. when they folded themselves inside-out to reveal an infinite beauty, an innocence so pure it could never last for long. and yet their fairness, so short and fragile, attracted an amount of people too great to wrap your head around. in the parks of tokyo, people would rest for the two weeks that the blossoms stayed on the trees before they fell to the ground like soft feathers and burning ashes. </p><p>and jisung could only agree with them; the flowers were implausibly beautiful, even in the early state of bloom they were currently in. but he pondered if maybe, just maybe, the boy standing a few meters away was even more beautiful. </p><p>he had dark hair falling over his forehead, contrasting gently with his skin. his features were fair and sharp, but a subtle and young softness still lingered to his face, creating an approachable aura around him. his body was all strong limbs and lean muscle underneath fitted clothes and jisung briefly wondered if he was graceful in his movements, like a dancer on a stage, fluid and yet in control, the image somehow fitting to his physique. the boy's mouth moved as he spoke to a girl standing before him, pink lips stretching into a smile at something the girl said. </p><p>he was ethereal. </p><p>for a quick moment, the boy's gaze flickered to where jisung was standing, unconsciously aware of him looking and reacting before consciousness did. when their gazes met, the boy’s eyes were dark chocolate and sluggishly running honey, slow mornings and softness that made jisung’s breath hitch. he didn’t look away, and neither did the boy until his friend waved a hand in front of his face, breaking the moment and loosening the tight feeling wrapped around jisung’s heart. </p><p>and jisung watched as the boy started walking down the gravel path alongside his friend, his shirt catching in the gentle breeze and moving subtly, like ripples in water, a quiet beauty. dark eyes looked back and the feeling in jisung’s chest lingered with the memory of the boy and parting gazes speaking of wishful returns.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>°☾~ ◝</p>
</div><p>jisung saw him for the second time when half of the buds on the trees had turned to blossom and people stuck themselves to the ground underneath the canopies, as if they were trying to become one with the grass and the earth and forever watch the flowers melt into sky above them. </p><p>between strollers and gatherings the boy from days before sat alone, watching the people rather than the trees, hands twisted in the green stems below him. he looked soft, cream and peach and pink in fabrics blended together in serenity; a quiet welcome. but his eyes were dark when their stares met, silently expecting and deliberately proposing. </p><p>jisung’s heart did a single, impressive somersault in his chest and anticipation spread like a sharp prickle to his fingertips. air got stuck in his throat, a sudden tackiness preventing it from flowing freely. he wanted to walk over to the boy, wanted to sit down beside him, wanted to know him, watch him, feel him. but anxiousness and doubt turned his body to lead, made him unable to move even a fraction from where he stood on the gravel path. that was the case until his mind comprehended the chance of the situation and gave his own body an involuntary kick that he almost felt physically, a fleeting determination suddenly lifting the soles of his feet as if they were weightless. </p><p>with bated breath, jisung wound his way through warm intentions and cold conversations until he was standing before the boy. a wind ruffled his hair, brown strands brushing over his face and sticking to his lashes, curious eyes peering up at him with the sun brightening the colour of his iris, making dark chocolate turn milk. even though the air around them was slightly chill, a warmth spread in jisung’s chest, as if a candle was being held beneath his heart, flickering in between beats. </p><p>they didn’t say anything, only listened to everything around them for a moment, shouts of glee and of disagreement weaving themselves together into a cacophony of discernible voices, like a cloud of sound growing thicker by the minute, suffocating like a heavy rug over their heads. jisung sat down beside the boy on the grass and with none of them speaking, he became vaguely aware that this wasn’t exactly normal, this silence wasn’t the way you usually got to know people. </p><p>but the feeling in his chest was steadily spreading through his body in time with his rhythmic heartbeat and convinced his lips to keep from moving, to stay quiet and let the presence of the other wander along his skin. a bird chirped in a nearby tree, nearly lost in the never-ending waves of words stringed into sentences around them. another bird chirped back. </p><p>jisung was so focused on listening to the conversation taking place in the overlapping branches above them, that he almost missed the voice adding to the mass, an unfamiliar one, much closer to jisung than the rest. </p><p>“i was, uhm, actually hoping to see you again.” the boy's voice was warm like sunburnt sand and smooth like endless skies and it washed over jisung like slow tides and fleeting laughter. he threw a glance in the direction of the boy to find him intently looking forwards, as if he was not speaking to jisung at all. only a nervous twitch in his fingers gave him away, made jisung convinced that he hadn’t just imagined the words spoken. </p><p>in lack of a better answer, with his mind stuck on the frequency of the boy’s voice, playing it over and over like a broken record, etching it into the insufficient walls of his memory, jisung murmured a quiet, <i>likewise</i>, and turned his eyes towards the ground, feeling bashful for a reason he did not know. the feeling was now consuming him to the ends of his fingertips, a giddiness evident in the blood rushing through his veins. and yet, he did not dare to act on the foolish urge of speaking, of touching, of wanting.</p><p>they continued to watch the world move and spin around them, gravity keeping them all down, preventing their bodies to follow any dreams and visions spiraling towards an infinite universe above, left to evaporate into thin air, spilling through the grasping fingers of their beholders.</p><p>and jisung felt as if he was choking on a breath he didn’t remember taking, the taste ever so sweet as the longing on the tip of his tongue. </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>°☾~ ◝</p>
</div><p>the third time jisung meets him and the second time they speak, the boy is feeding birds, seated on a years-too-old park bench some distance away from the mass of people gathered under full blossoms. jisung didn’t exactly plan on walking this particular path back to his ephemeral home, considering it was a detour and hunger was biting at the sides of his stomach, acting as an aching reminder of his carelessness. </p><p>but when catching sight of the figure leaning back on a dilapidated backrest, feet crossed and legs on display, surrounded by birds of various shapes and sizes swarming the ground before him like gloomy clouds around a glimmering sun, jisung silently thanked the impulsive and unexplainable draw he got when confronted with choosing a direction at a fork in the road earlier, after having waited too long beneath cherry-trees for a boy who never passed by. </p><p>waving off childish thoughts of fate and forethought destinies, jisung once again made his way towards the boy - whom he had yet to acquire a name to call him by, the question having been left unasked during their last encounter. upon jisung coming closer, the boy looked up and his face lit up with a small smile flitting across his lips. his eyes were partly hidden behind clear frames balanced on his nose, but jisung could still feel his gaze caressing his person as he came to a stop a couple of feet away from the bench. </p><p>“what’s with the birds?” he asked, voice quiet and breathy from unuse. wringing his hands together, jisung tilted his head to the side, looking curiously at the figure clad in pale shades and earthy tones before him. </p><p>the boy spread his hands out, palms up in a gesture that felt too revealing. he gave a silent answer, needing no explanation as breadcrumbs fell from between his fingers, and yet he offered jisung one anyway. </p><p>“leftovers,” he said, softly brushing the crumbs stuck in the creases of his skin down onto the ground before laying his hands in his lap, resting them on jean-covered thighs. “i work at a bakery downtown that allows me to take care of the bread they can’t sell.” he continued, keeping his eyes on jisung, hopefully unaware of the way jisung’s nails dug into his palms in an attempt to contain the flutter of his heart at hearing the boy’s voice again, silently cursing his puzzling infatuation for affecting him so much. </p><p>“if you work here, does that mean you live here too?” he fidgeted as he stood, feeling awkward at the way he seemed so lost in his stance. the boy appeared to sense it too, gaze flickering to the empty space beside him, beckoning. and as jisung hesitatingly stepped forward to take a seat on the bench, much too close to the other for jisung’s tumultuous mind’s liking, the boy mumbled an affirmative ‘<i>yes</i>’. </p><p>the, now almost familiar, clapping of jisung’s heart sealed his lips shut after that, fear of saying the wrong thing twisting his reasoning, making him unable to sort out a coherent thought. </p><p>the boy, however, didn’t seem to mind as he proceeded to tell jisung about himself, stories bleeding from his gesturing hands, colouring their world in subtle hues and the warmth of welcoming. and they never touched, but jisung felt him. like a numbness in his fingertips, a settled storm in his mind, a quiet thrum in his heartbeat.</p><p>-</p><p>“what’s your name?” </p><p>the boy spun around in his next step, his journey away from jisung taking a temporary break, pebbles skirting around his feet, sending a bright smile that settled in jisung’s heart and made it feel heavier in his chest, pressing against his ribcage. </p><p>“minho.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>°☾~ ◝</p>
</div><p>the fourth time it was minho who approached jisung, turning up from seemingly nowhere and pulling jisung up to his feet from where he was resting against a tree trunk, surrounded by falling petals and tentative chatting. </p><p>“walk with me?” a voice said close to his ear, almost a whisper, like a secret caught in the fragile space between them, forgotten if unanswered and bound to join other wistful wishes in cotton-candy clouds above. </p><p>but jisung breathed it in, saving the request and the moment in the bumps between his ribs, in the nod of his head, in the sparkle in minho’s eyes that his answer induced and in the way minho took his hand and started leading him away, with jisung following behind, steps matching the rhythm of his pulsing veins. </p><p>-</p><p>“minho?”</p><p>“yeah?”</p><p>“where are we going?”</p><p>“i don’t know.”</p><p>-</p><p>minho walked him to places he wouldn’t otherwise see by himself, to streets with walls covered in imaginations translated into spray-paint, to dead-ends turned gardens brimming with vines and flowers, to busy roads and to quiet cobbled streets.</p><p>the ache in jisung’s feet was prominent when they came to a stop in front of a building, bricks stacked high before them, reaching towards the navy blue canvas above. looking at minho beside him, jisung discovered him with his gaze turned down, eyes tracking the movements of his own nervous hands picking at his cuticles, an almost anxious look painted in the lines of his face.</p><p>“this is where i live.” he confessed after a little while, softly, the words travelling between them, only registering in jisung’s mind after a second too long, kickstarting his nearly calm heartbeat and making it fly up in his throat, leaving him able to utter nothing but a squeaky hum of understanding. </p><p>the silence stretched between them, filled with unspoken predictions and wordless anticipation. the tension, one unfamiliar in their vacancy, was thick like winter air and electrifying like thunderstorms, bolting through them, making them aware of the other in every single sense. </p><p>jisung didn’t know what he thought, what he wanted to happen. with the way they both waited so expectantly, restlessly, it was obvious what the next line to cross would be and jisung didn’t know how to feel, how to decipher the signals and messages in his mind. if he followed minho up to his apartment, he might never want to leave, might get so attached that he couldn’t bear to break away, might turn this cautious dancing around each other into something too close. and if he didn’t, he might get too far away, might never get to see, to taste, to feel where this might take them.</p><p>“do you-, uhm, do you want to come upstairs?” the way minho’s voice trembled with an underlying nervousness made something in jisung settle, made his decision feel like one he had made his mind up for long ago. he nodded almost unconsciously, detecting the act at the same time as minho’s face brightened at seeing jisung showing his consent. </p><p>and then, when being pulled into a dimly lit staircase smelling like paint and familiarity and home and with the weight of his choice resting on his shoulders, jisung found himself wondering if he would, just like the blossoms, burn and fall at the end of it all. </p><p>-</p><p>minho’s apartment wasn’t by any book particularly big, but it wasn’t exactly cramped either. the impression of small could be blamed on the extensive amount of personal things stacked everywhere, overflowing shelves spilling onto the floor, plants perched on makeshift stands of books looking ready to topple over at any given moment. </p><p>“it’s not a lot, and it’s quite messy, but i like it,” minho said as they moved from the door to a living room-conjoined-bedroom. in the corner furthest away from where they stood, a wide mattress was pushed to the wall underneath a window with the blinds pulled down halfway, ivy winding its way towards the floor from its pot on the window sill. through the glass door beside the bed, jisung spotted tokyo spreading out in all its glory over a balcony banister, twinkling in the darkening evening. with a pensive feeling in his chest, he tore his eyes away from the sight. “it’s home.” minho continued, leading the way to a doorway missing its door in another corner of the room, next to the balcony. </p><p>a small kitchenette, seeming barely fit for two to stand in, much less move around in, appeared as jisung stopped in the open entrance, watching as minho navigated the tiny space with ease, filling a kettle and flicking it on before turning around and directing all of his attention to jisung.</p><p>the nervousness clinging to jisung ever since they stood outside sent a tremble through his legs and a flush to his cheeks at the discerning way minho’s piercing gaze travelled beneath his skin, making him rest against the frame at his side from the sudden unsteadiness. </p><p>“i figured i’d make tea. you want some?” minho inquired, the tone of his voice somewhere between amused and gentle, leaning back on the wooden counter behind him, dirty dishes piled up haphazardly beside the sink. the cream sweater he was wearing rid up his hands to bunch at his wrists when he crossed his arms, a gesture that would usually feel hostile, but at this moment only added to the warm and light atmosphere in the apartment.  </p><p>“yeah, sure.” came jisung’s reply, a smile tugging at his lips while mimicking minho’s motion and crossing his own arms over his chest, exaggerating a casual stance, causing the corners of minho’s mouth to turn upwards and igniting a mirthful glint in his eyes as he picked up on the movement. </p><p>without turning around to look, minho opened a cupboard over his right shoulder, revealing colourful boxes of various kinds stacked inside.  </p><p>“choose for yourself.” minho said with a sweep of his hand, beckoning jisung forwards, the gesture feeling welcoming and intimidating at the same time, a smell of challenge carefully spreading through the room, wrapping itself around them with the way minho didn’t move to make space, but stayed where he was, making jisung bound to stand close, too close, if he was to take a step forward. </p><p>with a stupid urge of defending some kind of pride winning over what his mind would call common sense, jisung moved until he was beside minho, his front turned towards the cupboard before him, resolutely pretending to focus entirely on picking his tea with nimble fingers sorting through the packages. and yet his sight remained blind to the many different brands and flavours presented in front, his senses too aware of the boy standing next to him. </p><p>feeling the heat of minho’s eyes watching him, jisung’s hand closed around a random box, sharp corners digging into his palm, before pulling it out and holding it up to the other. </p><p>“i’ll take this.” he stated, nerves getting the better of him and his voice cracking slightly at the end of his sentence. minho’s eyes flickered down to the package before his gaze shifted up to jisung’s again with a bewildered look that soon turned amused on his face. </p><p>“jisung, that’s coffee.” minho mused, his following laughter poorly concealed into a cough while a feeling of dread slowly took its place in jisung’s chest, only getting more prominent and so much heavier when he looked down on the bright orange parcel in his hand, detecting the ‘coffee’ proudly printed with bold letters on the cardboard. humiliation spread like wildfire in him, settling like a burn in his cheeks, making his whole face feel hot. </p><p>“ah, yes, of course. i knew that,” he stressed, a nervous laughter slipping out between his lips, embarrassment too evident in the way it bounced off the walls, nuances false and sleazy. “i was just checking if you were aware.” he continued, praying that the redness of his cheeks wasn’t as rich as he thought, while twisting his body around and putting the box back into the cupboard again. mortification filled him to his toes, his entire being flaming with it, a hotness rushing behind his ears, scorching his scalp. </p><p>“i like this one.” minho’s voice chimed beside him, interrupting his inner scolding of his mind for getting so worked up and turning his senses into a frenzy as an arm entered his vision and the presence beside him came so much closer, the warmth radiating off of minho’s body hitting his already burning one. jisung could feel minho’s exhale against his temple, thoughts and fantasies unspoken twirling before his eyes before melting into the air. </p><p>the hand before him reached inside the cupboard where both of jisung’s hands were still positioned and grabbed a small glaucous-blue box, fingers brushing jisung’s while pulling it out, tracing his skin, featherlight, almost tickling. </p><p>jisung followed the motion with his eyes and retracted his own hands from the cabinet before resting them on the countertop, wood smooth and firm underneath his palms. turning his face up to ask minho what kind of tea the box contained, the question got lodged in his throat, small bubbles of air spilling over his lips without his tongue forming them into words. </p><p>he was so close, too close, just a breath, a heartbeat away, his features in such focus that jisung almost felt dizzy from looking at him. his eyes were turned down, reading the label glued to the package in his hands, before his gaze moved up to jisung’s, mouth open in the beginning of a sentence, which seemed to die, just like jisung’s, as their eyes met. </p><p>barely aware of the sparking tension travelling in the air surrounding them, jisung observed him, watched his eyes study his face, listened to the intake of breath through his parted lips and the exhale that followed, his scent wrapping itself around him like a blanket, clean and soft, discreet and light, like feathers, like blossoms. </p><p>jisung’s head was spinning, thoughts tumbling over each other in their haste to make themselves heard, leaving him unable to figure out what to do, his mind desperately trying to make sense of his own consciousness, busy enough to not notice the impulse his heart sent through his body that caused his limbs to act before his mind registered it.</p><p>minho’s lips were slightly dry, but soft as he felt them pressed against his own, his rushing thoughts slowing down for a moment to appreciate it before the weight of what he had done struck like a heavy hammer in his head, turning his warning bells into an overworked hysteria, running thoughts falling into chaos and his mind sending immediate signals for his body to pull away. </p><p>minho, however, seemed to have wrapped his head around the situation before him as he placed a hand on the back of jisung’s head, keeping him in place when he started to lean back. and while the initial fear of doing the wrong thing quieted down inside jisung, he felt minho pressing back, lips answering the silent plea his own unintentionally had sent. </p><p>the tension and emotions leading up to this moment bolted through jisung, bleeding out of him like a poison, leaving a floating feeling behind, light and relieving, his limbs heavy and exhausted from the sheer calm flowing in them. he took a slight chance, lifting his hand to rest in the space where minho’s neck met his shoulder, turning his body towards minho’s with the motion, fingers caressing the skin, following the sun-kissed lines while minho’s own body responded.</p><p>hands ran up his sides, slowly, sluggishly, as if taking their time to actually feel his presence, convincing themselves of reality, dreams dragged down by grasping fingers finding purchase. they came to rest on the small of his back, a warm weight comforting and soothing through the material of his shirt. </p><p>when he broke away for breath he didn’t open his eyes, trying to keep the quiet inside for a little while longer, the serenity and the feeling of his chest wide open, his ribs expanding, reaching for something lasting to hold on to. </p><p>and as another pair of lips were pressed against his own once again, wants and wishes exchanged between chapped skin, the hold around his heart tightened, igniting a burn behind his lids, a desire so pure with a sense too dark. the dance was over, leaving only the inevitable fall of the end in wait, restless blossoms descending, always hitting the ground.</p><p>-</p><p>minho’s touches were, resembling his voice, like the tides, running over jisung like waves to later draw back and only leaving barely-there prints behind, burning and ghostlike, as if they were never there. </p><p>he made no marks, merely followed the planes of jisung’s body with his own, careful and hesitant, like he was examining art too fine to make an imprint of his own. </p><p>“i think i might want you to stay here. around.” he said, the words whispered into jisung’s skin, edging themselves between the cells and into his bloodstream, travelling through his body, ripping him up and making him feel it in every single part of his being, scorching and bruising, with an aftertaste as sweet as honey, sticking to him like toxic. </p><p>jisung’s hand settled around the back of minho’s neck, leading his head up and pressing their lips together in a kiss that spoke the words he couldn’t. flowers bloomed in his chest, consuming him and swallowing his self, leaving but a bittersweet longing seeping through his fingertips, painting minho’s skin as he traced it. </p><p>their minds were deficient, words too few to convey and bodies too fragile to express the burn in their bones, the thunder in their exhales, touches falling like drizzling rain, seemingly absent but felt to their core in the afterglow.</p><p>no more words were exchanged, eyes speaking in their turn, quiet understanding voiced between kisses and desire, a gentle play of pretend, colours faded in their vision, slow aching layered with frantic movement, turning thoughts misty and limbs heavy. fatigue pulled on their eyelids until one of them caved, giving in to the resolute draw of sleep. </p><p>and jisung stayed awake, only falling asleep after he’d counted enough breaths of minho’s to know that he was in love with the way his chest rises and falls and with the way his eyes move behind closed lids in delicate dream and with the way his heart beats steadily against his fingertips that were resting on minho’s chest and in a fleeting thought before sleep overtakes him, jisung sees small, light petals dancing on rippling water. </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>°☾~ ◝</p>
</div><p>morning came lazy like afternoon breezes and breathless laughter, tugging on sleepy minds with arms of sunlight sifting through ivy-blinds. the melodic tones of bird-song drifted inside through the slight gap between the window and its frame, weaving itself into the dusty air floating in the apartment.</p><p>jisung could feel the wrinkles in the sheets when he dragged his fingers across it, eyes still shut, with the thin duvet pooled by his waist, revealing the smooth planes of his back as he rested on his front. the chill of the morning air streamed in on a breeze through the cracked-open window, spreading goosebumps over his skin in its wake. </p><p>content with the lingering drowsiness filtering his senses, he let himself breathe in the moment before his mind woke up, before the relentless worries began. </p><p>a softness kissed his shoulder as a presence made itself evident beside him, sending shivers down his spine and tingles through his blood. without really realising it, he drew closer to the warmth of the other body, absorbing it and clinging to it like a lifeline, some part of him already trying desperately to keep something safe. </p><p>“i made tea.” minho mumbled into his neck, lips dragging over his skin, seeming reluctant to break away even for a moment, silent imaginations spilling out of his mouth, featherlight, tickling. “i could actually drink it this time, since i didn’t get so rudely interrupted like yesterday.”</p><p>jisung hummed softly in response, letting the teasing slide, and felt a smile being pressed against his jawline. the blessed pause of sleep was leaving him, his body waking up and his mind weaving wonders with the aftertaste of night. he blindly reached, fumbled, for the figure next to him, hands finding attachment and dragging minho towards him, burrowing further into his warmth, heart fluttering from the arm that settled around his frame in answer. </p><p>calmness embraced them, the quiet only broken by the birds’ tireless chirping and the occasional vehicle driving past on the street below. minho’s hand ran up his back, treading itself into his hair, combing the strands with his fingers and loosening tangles linked by nightfall's clever touch. </p><p>“as much as i would like to keep lying like this, the tea is going cold.” minho said, his voice floating somewhere above, trapped inside four walls, bouncing back on surfaces until it lost its hold on itself. jisung let out a sigh, unwillingness to leave the soft confines of the bed weighing on his mind as he sat up and blinked his eyes open. </p><p>the last of his shamed delight from the forsaken land of dreaming left him as his vision registered the morning around him. although admittedly beautiful, beams of light shredding the room into an ethereal abyss, it inkled a sadness in jisung, a sadness concentrating into a lump in his throat, a dense cloud in his mind, turning the colours dull, washed out. </p><p>a brush of skin, an eerie skim of hands winding their way around his waist followed by a weight of a chest, a steady heartbeat, pressed against his back and turned his heavy heart lighter, forcing it to beat faster in a way that felt too satisfying. </p><p>“do you always think this much in the mornings?” the question was teasing, light, but full of intent and carrying a message too obvious. </p><p>smiling slightly at the comment, jisung shot him a look before letting minho drag him up and leading him through the art of waking up alongside the sun. sipping tea chosen from a glaucous-blue box in steaming mugs, surrounded by the tell-tale thick air of laughter and stories spelling themselves in chromatics. fingers coated in toothpaste acting the role of a makeshift toothbrush, layered with kisses too significant and too minty. </p><p>the cloud in jisung’s mind cleared, but his throat felt tighter, prompting a burn behind his eyes with the way the air felt harder to breathe. </p><p>at the door, outside, with graceful wind solving the last of the knots in their sleep-ruffled hair, goodbyes were a never-ending story coated with poisonous sorrow on every page, deeper in between the lines than what was written.</p><p>and as they walked their separate ways, the hold around jisung’s heart twisted, breaking all fragile things, the flowers of his being wilting, burning, to become ashes, choking him up. in a last shot of clumsy hope, he threw a glance back and caught the boy spinning on his heels, shirt catching in the wind and pebbles skittering around his feet, their eyes meeting and exchanging a last quiet understanding, of featherlight touches, of endless serenity and of wishful returns.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>°☾~ ◝</p>
</div><p> </p><p>standing in the park, minho’s right hand clenched around the paper bag holding the loaf of bread he was supposed to give to the birds by the old bench standing along the small gravel path leading east. his other hand trembled slightly, in rueful anticipation or despair, he wasn’t exactly sure. petals scattered the ground around him, the trees surrounding him seeming naked without any flowers crowning the ends of their branches. </p><p>his heartbeat echoed in his ears, too loud in the nearly empty space, free of gatherings and strollers, lacking the cacophony of discernible voices it had inhabited lately. and the one part of these inhabitants that was the most important, the boy with the chestnut hair falling before his eyes in soft descent, with a breath like the tides and a touch bleeding of caution and care, sticking like honey. the most important, essential and valuable, was just as gone. </p><p>he couldn’t breathe. </p><p>for a meeting time had come and gone, like a coldness creeping along the ground and winding itself tighter around his bare ankles, sinking in grass tormented by the vicious fists of people falling in love with a quiet and terminal beauty. just like him. except the crowd looked at blooming cherry trees, while he only had eyes for a lithe frame, now only existent on the insufficient walls of his memory.</p><p>fooled by the imagination of faith, lost in hope and predictions, he waited, while his heart soared up towards infinite universes and cotton-clouds, leaving a shell of dull thumping, spreading a numbness through his body until all he could feel was a vast prickle in the back of his head. </p><p>and he felt as if he forgot the simple act of existing for a moment, for his dreams and visions and the whole of his mind was caught in the fragile air above, bound to an eternal rising without him ever following. a ghost of a presence haunting his senses, the feeling of skin against his own burning, scalding, forever stuck to his self like ashes. the infatuation, beautiful and short, like blossoms that took his heart with them in their rightful fall, at the end of it all. </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(and it was nothing but fingertips, barely there and almost not close enough, not real enough, but just enough when they grasped his wrist, spinning him around to a colour in his hands, a settled storm in his mind, a thrum in his heartbeat and to lips tasting ever so sweet as the longing on the tip of his tongue.)</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>°☾~ ◝</p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hope you enjoyed this slightly confusing piece of fiction for our favourite pairing. </p><p>i hope to write more skz in the future, they're absolutely <i>l o v e l y</i>.</p><p> </p><p>i wish you good holidays. merry christmas. &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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